Last week's News

It had to happen eventually, I was kidding myself to think that the recent
positive turn of events could hold out.
All I’ve been through with this expedition, the nerds, the Chinese spies,
the peach cobbler that for some reason tasted like fish sticks, the cook
who only worked with pork by-products and the mindless prattle of our investor/leader/only
guy I know who’d put money into this venture.
Who’d ever think I’d regret the loss of just one of those annoying elements?
Such is the crisis we now face.
It turns out that our venture businessman, a giant in the field because
he will take risks that no one else will and said risks have a history of
doing extraordinarily well all things considered, is now short on cash.
On the plus side at least it’s a relatively mundane crisis that doesn’t
involve Star Trek, William Shatner, Morelocks, McDonalds claiming to be
the oldest corporation in existence or John Lennon rising from the grave
to give his personal stamp of approval to the latest round of Boyz 2 Men
concerts.
It’s not a cash crisis brought on by this particular adventure, in fact
we’ve managed to pay off half our expenditure through careful marketing,
tours and a backroom deal with Beijing that has resulted in some sort of
popular Olympics related merchandising of the Atlantis expedition.
I don’t get it, I don’t have to explain it.
Somehow Moneybags has over extended himself, and now funding, right as we’re
beginning to find cool stuff, is an issue.
Why not just sell a few things, you ask? Not that easy as it turns out.
Registering, even for something small, seemingly useful, marketing, selling,
all of that requires a certain amount of cash, and Moneybags is in a position
where he can’t even get a loan cleared.
That being said he does have a plan: Limited partnership.
Now that might have been a good idea, even good news, fresh eyes, new ideas,
dilute the nerd concentration a bit, only who saunters along? Microsoft.
Apparently with the Yahoo deal falling through Microsoft is looking for
something, pretty much anything, new and interesting to invest in.
Having already been turned down by Marvel for making more comic book oriented
movies, on the basis that Marvel doesn’t need help and kind of likes a little
competition (they still haven’t found the Microsoft Executive’s head after
hearing that one) the company has turned to one of the few remaining open
investment fads of the moment.
Us.
The nerds are happy because it means more money and technology, however
like myself they are wary.
Sure, Moneybags says limited partnership, but when was the last time Microsoft
did anything limited?
So we’re waiting on the other shoe to drop, and hopefully that’s just a
metaphor because if the first thing we get is a shipment of left shoes I’m
going to be ticked.